Let us begin by saying an enormous thank you to everyone who donated to BOnFire (Beltane Online Fire Festival) back in April. We raised an incredible £2,000 across the evening, which will be a big help when we start to bring our festivals back to Edinburgh in-person.

Your generous donations have also meant that we could follow through on our pledge to spend some money on healing our planet. Climate change has not gone away, and we intend to do our bit to keep pushing for a greener future. As promised, we have now gifted 10% of the money raised at BOnFire to two deserving environmental charities – both this time with a harvest focus! Read below to find out more about the causes your donations have helped.

BumbleBee Conservation Trust – £100

Pollination is vital for many of the nation’s wild and garden plants, and provides animals with a source of food and shelter. Without bumblebees we would have less colour; less beauty; less healthy and nutritious food. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust are working hard to create and restore habitats and to encourage bee-friendly gardening that our wild pollinators need to survive.

• £16 buys 100g of wildflower seeds to create around 15m2 of wildlife habitats – about the size of an average living room.
• £64 buys 400g of wildflower seeds to create 100m2 of wildlife habitats – about the size of a rugby pitch.
• £75 helps towards the production of land management factsheets to assist landowners in improving land for our pollinators.
• £100 pays for a bumblebee presentation and activity session at a primary school.

Leith Community Crops in Pots – £100

Set up to encourage and support the people and organisations of Leith to grow food vegetables and flowers for bees in urban spaces, in order to improve health and wellbeing, community cohesion and the environment. While their main long-term focus is on promoting the multiple benefits of healthy nutrition and engagement with nature, and using food-growing for this as well as to build community, Leith Community Crops in Pots are also very much concerned with addressing disadvantage, and with developing a replicable ‘urban croft’ model for others to follow.

They currently run environment-, food- and wellbeing-related workshops online, as well as an emergency feeding scheme engaging over 130 people as recipients, as freelancers (people who might otherwise be out of work due to the lockdown) and as volunteers. Some grow vegetables in a market garden, some cook meals, and many deliver meals using a fleet of cargo bikes.

Featured image by Kasia Sowinka for Beltane Fire Society. All rights reserved.